Hottest Day of the Year

The majority of books and articles on the Borden murders begin much the same, with some version of “On the morning of August 4th, 1892, it was already hot by the time breakfast was served at the Borden house, and the temperature would continue climbing.” Many accounts put the temperature over 100 degrees Fahrenheit that day; however, whether they declare the temperature or not, most authors who have written on the case have been entirely in agreement that it was “the hottest day of the year” in Fall River.

“It is addressed to your credible understandings as men,” Knowlton added, that “you are asked to believe that, being engaged in a occupation which of itself would be heating, the ironing of those handkerchiefs, she left that job on the eve of is completion and went out of the house and up in that barn to the hottest place in Fall River and there remain.” Knowlton said that could not have happened because the barn loft was “a place hot beyond the power of description.” He had set up this argument well in the days leading up to his closing by making sure many of the witnesses for the prosecution were asked about their memories of the heat that day. All who were asked agreed it had been very hot indeed.

Yet, the records of the day tell a different story. According to the United States Signal Service, the highest temperature in Fall River on the day of the murders was 83 degrees Fahrenheit (28°C), a temperature that was recorded at 2 p.m, three hours after the murders. Borden scholar Leonard Rebello, author of Lizzie Borden: Past and Present, tells us that The Fall River Daily Herald, which routinely documented the temperature outside their offices, reported that the temperature on August 4th was even lower than that. The temperature, said the evening paper, was at 8 a.m. only 66 degrees, at 12 noon it was 72 degrees, and at 2 p.m. it was 76 degrees, with the highest temperature of the day reaching 78 degrees. Other area newspapers reported a range of somewhat different findings, but no newspaper reported significant heat above the low 80s.

So why the discrepancy between what people remembered and what the records show? First, newspapers did not report on the humidity of the day, an important factor in the perception of heat. New England coastal summers are notoriously humid to the point that the moisture in the air can make even fairly mild temperatures feel oppressively warm. (Edmund Pearson made an amusing observation that the people of New England “made no concessions to the intense heat of summer,” saying that its inhabitants were slow in recognizing “the fact that their climate, from June to October is tropical. That discovery had not been made in 1892.”) Second, by all accounts there had been an unusual heat wave the week before the murders, and it could have been that the memory of intense heat near that time still lingered in the minds of witnesses who later testified in court.

Whatever the reason for the persistent theme of heat on August 4th in courtroom accounts, it had now been declared by serious students of the case that the “hottest day of the year” characterization is a myth. Which can be disappointing to those who have sometimes made the case that the heat helped contribute to Lizzie Borden’s murderous impulse that day. Who doesn’t have a short fuse on a hot and humid day when one is covered in prim Victorian clothing from neck to wrist and trapped in a house without air conditioning? But alas, it was not as hot as people remembered. Unless, of course, it was.

Author’s Take

I think it’s always important to set the record straight, especially when there are actual records to consult. And thank heavens for those Borden scholars who have, over the decades, been willing to do the tedious work of digging up records. Those who identified the myth of the heat that day deserve generous credit. However, as anyone who has taken the time to read through newspaper accounts of the Borden murders can tell you, the papers often got many facts wrong through rushed reporting or the printing of unfounded rumors. It is possible weather reports were sometimes hastily assembled or otherwise relayed inaccurately as well.

But whether it was blazing hot or just uncomfortably warm due to humidity, I don’t know how can one rely on accounts of what witnesses observed about Lizzie on the day of the murders in order to prove her guilt, and then disregard the memories of the same witnesses who said they remembered it being very hot. Deputy Marshal John Fleet actually used the phrase, “hottest day of the year” when asked what he remembered about August 4th. If his memory of the heat is not reliable, then could it be some of his other memories were unreliable as well?

In the end, while I believe it is vital to identify the persistent myths that surround the case and understand how they impact the way we perceive it, I confess I don’t see how the temperature of the day matters one way or the other to the solving of the Borden murders. The sound and fury over the alleged heat has always puzzled me, starting with Knowlton’s hyperbole in his closing. Are we really supposed to declare Lizzie a liar when she said she went up into the barn merely because it was hot that day?

My own time living through a sweltering summer in an old New England Victorian house without air conditioning was absolutely miserable. But while it had me lying awake drenched in sweat at night, it didn’t stop me from living my life. I still got up and cared for my equally sweat-drenched child and cooked and cleaned and did whatever else needed doing. And whatever the temperature in Fall River actually was on August 4th, 1892, it didn’t stop Andrew from walking downtown to attend to his business, even though he’d recently been sick, and it didn’t stop Bridget from washing windows, even though she was feeling sick, and it didn’t stop Mrs. Churchill from walking down to the store to shop for her noon meal. An actual heat wave didn’t stop the proceedings at Lizzie’s trial, even though a jury member reportedly fainted in the sultry courtroom. So, why should it stop Lizzie from going up into the barn? Now she may not have gone up into the barn, she may have indeed invented the story to give her guilty self an alibi. But, to me, hammering on the heat to help prove Lizzie’s guilt merely revealed the weakness of the prosecution’s case against her.